The present invention relates to an ion exchanger.
When a fuel cell is installed in a vehicle or the like, the vehicle includes a cooling circuit through which a refrigerant that cools the fuel cell flows. The cooling circuit limits temperature increases of the battery cell when power is generated.
However, when ions are eluted from a pipe or the like to a refrigerant in the cooling circuit and ions are generated through the heating and decomposition of components in the refrigerant, the ions in the refrigerant flowing through the cooling circuit increases. This may cause metal erosion and lower the performance of the fuel cell. Thus, the cooling circuit includes an ion exchanger that adsorbs and removes ions from the refrigerant.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-83744 discloses an example of an ion exchanger known in the art. In the ion exchanger, an ion exchange resin is arranged in a case including an inflow hole and an outflow hole. When a refrigerant flows from the inflow hole into the case and passes through the ion exchange resin, the ion exchange resin removes ions from the refrigerant through ion exchange. After the ions are removed, the refrigerant flows out of the case through the outflow hole.
In the ion exchanger, the refrigerant in the case does not always evenly pass through the ion exchange resin, and the flow of the refrigerant may be biased when passing through the ion exchange resin. In such cases, the ion exchange resin cannot efficiently remove ions from the refrigerant. This will lower the efficiency for removing ions with the ion exchange resin in the ion exchanger.